


lately i've been craving more

by ofhobbitsandwomen (litvirg)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, braven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 14:43:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5630284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/litvirg/pseuds/ofhobbitsandwomen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Falling together again and again, Raven and Bellamy form a bond they can’t explain. They don’t understand what they feel for each other, when they’re both supposed to be loyal to someone else. When it’s clear how they do feel, they don’t know how to say it. Follows the events of seasons one and two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lately i've been craving more

**before**. 

 

Finn’s tent was small. 

He should’ve been back already, he should’ve been back hours ago, but he wasn’t. Neither was Clarke. But the two of them were still out there, together, both of them, _together_ , doing who knew what. 

Raven scoffed. As if she didn’t know what they were doing. 

But she wasn’t thinking about that, she reminded herself. She wasn’t going to give it that power. So instead she focused on his tent. His grimy, dingy, little tent. She hadn’t realized how small it was before, when she was sharing it with Finn. But now, there, by herself, she felt like the walls--if they could even be called walls, the sad little strips of fabric hanging over the sad stack of blankets they used as a bed--were falling in on her, swooping lower and lower with each minute passing. With each minute he was out, with Clarke, not coming back. 

_“Relax,”_ Murphy had said. _“I’m sure Clarke’s keeping him out of trouble.”_

The words were spinning around her head, over and over and over again, making her sick and sad and stupidly defeated. What the hell gave him--Murphy or Finn, she wasn’t sure--the right to make her, Raven fucking Reyes, feel like that?

She couldn’t stay in the tent. Not that one. 

She wasn’t sure what brought her to the tent by edge of the camp, the one that sat closer to the wall than to the other tents, but she stood waiting in it, hoping she’d figure out what the hell she was doing there soon. 

It was bigger, at least. She could breathe in there. 

She heard the sound of footsteps shuffling into the tent just behind her and then a deep rumbling voice. 

“What are you doing in here?”

She turned around to face Bellamy. What was she doing in there? Breathing. Distracting herself. Trying to find a way to hurt Finn. 

And Clarke. She wanted to hurt Clarke too, no matter how petty and stupid it made her feel. 

And she’d seen them, Bellamy and Clarke. She didn’t think they’d seen it in each other yet, Clarke hadn’t at least, but it was there. So she said the one thing she thought might work in her favor. Get Bellamy on her side. Or at least feeling as desperate as she felt. 

“They don’t waste time, I’ll give ‘em that. What’s it been? Day and a half?”

He schooled his face into a bored frown. If she had a mirror on hand she knew she’d find the same expression reflected on her face, so she didn’t take it to mean much. 

“You’re mistaking me for someone who cares,” he said. 

_Liar_ , she thought. Cares about her no, probably not. Not unless she was splitting bullets or making bombs. But about Clarke and Finn? And what they got up to when they were off together, when Clarke was choosing Finn instead of him as her partner, her co-leader? 

Absolutely. He cared about that. No matter how much he tried to hide it. And Raven saw right through him. 

“Time to move on,” he said. A dismissal, probably. 

But she wasn’t going anywhere. 

She sat down on his cot, kicking off her shoes and peeling off her coat. 

“What are you doing?” he said, not moving toward her, but not leaving. Not telling her to leave, either. 

She shrugged. 

“Moving on.”

She stood up and peeled her pants down over her under shorts and stood in front of him in just her tanktop and underwear. She pulled her hair out from its tie, tangles strands getting caught making her wince, but she shook it out over her shoulders. She stood, waiting, hoping, unthinking. 

He didn’t move and she felt a flush creep up her neck. 

“I’ve never been with anyone but Finn,” she said, looking away, ignoring his heavy gaze on her. Maybe if she gave another reason, if she just wanted experience or variety. If she made it seem like it had nothing to do with Finn or Clarke or him. Just about her. “Take off your clothes.”

He stood, stone still. His eyes were looking for something in her, and she didn’t know what it was. But she didn’t have time for that. 

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll go first.” 

She peeled her shirt off and let it slip into the pile with her pants and her shoes. She ignored the ache in her stomach, reminding her of how desperate she seemed, how vulnerable it made her, and she fixed her expression back into a scowl so it seemed less like a plea, and more like a demand. 

He couldn’t help it, his eyes trailed down over her, quickly, barely more than a second and before they snapped back up. He opened his mouth once, and closed it again, biting his bottom lip, figuring out his next move. 

“If you’re looking for someone to talk you down,” he said, “tell you that you’re just upset and not thinking straight, I’m not that guy.”

He waited before he touched her. He was giving her an out, letting her walk away without any lingering hurt or embarrassment. 

But now, the way he stood, his hands on his hips waiting for her to tell him again to touch her, to be with her, to help her help him get one over on Clarke and Finn, she didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want someone to talk her down, and she didn’t even want to think about Finn anymore. 

He raised his eyebrows in question. 

“Good.” And her mouth was on his. 

*** 

She didn’t stay after. 

He fell down beside her, breath heaving, one arm thrown back over his head. She watched his chest move up and down in time with his breathing from the corner of her eye wondering what it was sitting like a rock in the pit of her stomach. It got worse as he lay beside her, not kissing her hard like before, or lifting her up on his hips or pressing her down into his cot. Just lying there it grew and swelled and hardened and she had to get out of there. 

Raven stood up and grabbed at her clothes, yanking them on hurriedly. 

She caught him propping himself up on his elbows, watching her. She ducked her, head pulling her pants back on, purposefully avoiding his eye. 

“That help?” His voice was gruff and quietly curious. 

She pulled her jacket back on. 

Probably not, if the rock in her gut was anything to go by. She chanced a quick glance back at him, his eyes wide and wondering, but his mouth set in a scowl to make sure she knew it meant nothing to her. That he wanted her to think it meant nothing to her. So it would be nothing. 

“No.” She pulled her boots on and left the tent. 

*** 

They were back.

She heard Clarke rousing everyone, getting them ready to leave, heard Finn jumping in, defending her. She pushed herself up from where she fell, grabbing at the wall of the dropship to push herself off. 

She expected to feel something a bit more. More relieved. Or hopefull or...something. She wasn’t sure. But it wasn’t whatever odd brand of disappointment which was currently coursing through her as she limped through the gate. 

She was nearly doubled over, her arm clutching across her stomach, pressing into the wound when she felt everything go fuzzy. 

She caught sight of a mop of brown hair.

“Help me,” she whimpered.

She watched Finn’s head look toward her and she felt her pulse race at the thought of one more possibility; maybe he wouldn’t hesitate this time. 

“Raven!” 

She watched him stand there as Bellamy came running up to her calling her name. 

“Murphy shot her,” she heard him say, something strange in his voice. She lifted her head to try and meet his eyes right as Clarke’s arm lifted one side of her, followed by Finn not long after on the other side. Bellamy stood in front of them, his hands out helplessly as though he was going to scoop her up himself but thought better of it when he saw Finn running. It made the pit in her stomach grow bigger. His eyes were wide and frozen on her and the blood seeping through her shirt. 

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think of something, anything to distract her from the pain. From the possibility of dying. She couldn’t die. She couldn’t leave them here on their own with the grounders

She nodded feebly at Bellamy as he backed away from Finn, who had taken her in his arms completely. Bellamy crooked his head at her, expression the same, as he stayed back with Clarke--his hand on her wrist, Raven noticed--as she and Finn made their way into the dropship, together. 

 

 **one**.

She woke up foggy. Things coming back to her in pieces. Murphy, back in camp, capturing Jasper, terrorizing Bellamy, shooting through the floor right at her. Then crawling back in, helping her. Waiting to die. Waiting and waiting to die, curled up, unable to move on the bottom of that fucking dropship. The crappy hunk of metal that hurtled down to the Earth and rocked her entire world, without her even being on it. 

Things after that were more of a blur. Abby, she was there, a lot. Getting her from the dropship to the Ark. What was left of it anyway. 

And then there was the pain. Searing, ripping, cutting pain. 

She looked to her side. Finn. 

“Hey,” he said when he noticed she was awake. “How are you feeling?” His face was streaked with dirt and blood, and if she wasn’t hallucinating, streaks of tears trailing through it all. It made her gut wrench in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time. 

“Abby,” she said. “Get Abby.”

***

“You felt that?” Abby asked. Her fingers brushed her foot, tickling her again. 

“Yes.” She didn’t want to do this anymore. She was too tired. “I felt that.”

“Okay,” Abby smiled at her, and it reminded her of those few days on the Ark before it all. Back the two of them were just trying to get to the two people they loved, and it was all somehow unbelievably uncomplicated. “Now the left.”

She watched Abby’s fingers scratch their way up her left foot and she waited--to long, she knew--to feel something, but nothing came. She pulled her eyebrows together, remembering what it should feel like, if only she could. She could feel it so easily with her eyes closed, pretending she was back on the Ark. But here, on the ground--nothing. 

“Anything?” She heard Finn ask. But she didn’t need to answer. He knew. And his panicked grip tightened on her cot, and she wanted to love him for it, wanted to be grateful that he was there, going through it all with her, but she couldn’t take it. he couldn’t feel anything, and watching him feel it all for her wasn’t helping. 

“Try it again,” he told Abby. She watched Abby bite her lip, trying to figure out how to say what they all knew, but Finn was yelling before she found the words. “Try it again!”

“Finn,” Raven started. _Give it up_ , she wanted to say. _This isn’t the spacewalk, you can’t fix it for me_. 

“Raven,” Abby called to her. “I want you to tell me when you feel something, okay?”

Raven nodded. She watched Abby take a small needle, poking it up her foot, over her calf. Feel something, goddammit, Raven thought. She could imagine what it should feel like, what it did feel like every time the needle made contact with her skin, but it was memory, that’s all. Hazy, lying, hopeful memory. She squeezed her eyes shut. If she didn’t see the needle, she couldn’t pretend. 

Suddenly a prick right above her left knee pulled her out of her own head.

“There.”

Abby stopped, eyes wide in shock, as if she wasn’t expecting even that, and it made Raven’s heart sink a little. Suddenly she was back on the Ark, Abby smirking as she told her she was the youngest zero-g mechanic in 50 years, impressed with the brains and the spunk in the girl right before her. A far cry from the look on her face now, as she stared down at Raven, broken, dirty, stuck on the table before her. 

Abby took a moment before she said anything. 

“Raven it appears that you have significant damage to the nerves in your left leg.”

Well, Raven thought. Duh. 

“Will it get better?” She didn’t want to hope, but she had to know. It wasn’t like the Ark anymore. On the Ark it was her brain that made her special, the way she could work with her hands. But here? If you couldn’t move, you were dead. No one had the time or the strength to lug along someone who couldn’t carry their own weight. 

“For now you’ll need crutches,” Abby avoided the question. “But you’re alive. And you’re not in pain anymore.”

She felt a hand grip her right leg tightly, Abby trying to reassure her, but her tears were coming and she couldn’t stop them.

“But I’m still a cripple,” she choked out, turning her head. She didn’t want them to see her like this, Abby or Finn. She was strong. She was supposed to be strong. The fact that she just had her own death handed to her by the weakness of her own body didn’t mean her mind had an excuse to be weak. Not in front of them. 

Abby couldn’t say anything to change it, she couldn’t fix it with all the medical expertise she had, not down in the dirt filled fucking wasteland they tried to hard to get to, and she knew it. So she backed away from Raven. 

“I’m gonna give you two some time,” She nodded to Finn.

He walked over to her, not meeting her eye and she wasn’t sure whose benefit it was for, but she just wanted to reach out and pull him into her. She wanted to feel something normal and familiar for once. He sat next to her and let his hands fall into his own lap, and she watched them with itchy fingers. 

After a deep breath, he finally met her eye. 

“We always talk about you,” he said, words shaky. “Don’t you want to hear about my day?”

A fragile laugh bubbled out from her chest and she let herself smile for just a moment. 

“I’m so tired Finn,” she said. She didn’t know how to talk to him about anything she was feeling, and that was twisting her gut. It was Finn. She should be able to tell him about anything. She should feel better with him there, not worse. She shouldn’t feel like she has to hide anything, her fear or her rage or the way she felt completely and utterly useless. Like half a person, not complete enough to do anyone any good and a burden to the only family she’d ever known. 

He nodded. “Get some rest.”

And that was it. He was standing and she felt his obligation to her running thin. He wanted to be there for her, but he didn’t have the first clue what to do. And he was always going to hesitate on everything. It was never going to be natural between them anymore. 

She grabbed his wrist before he could leave. 

“Hey,” she said. “When I wake up, don’t be here.”

He didn’t understand. She could tell. He stared at her waiting for the punch line to drop, and it felt like they were back in the dropship, and she was breaking up with him all over again. 

“What are you talking about?” 

She tried to remember how she felt strong after that, just a little bit, choosing to let him go after she’d given up everything to hurtle down in a broken down metal box just for him. Maybe that was it, after all. Getting small ounces of strength every time you let go of something you thought you needed just to find out you could push on without it. 

“You were here for me,” she said. “Like always. But our friends are out there. And you need to go get them.”

It was easier with an excuse, this time. She could pretend it was all for them. That she was just sending him off to do what she couldn’t. And it was true, she missed them, she was worried about them every second she wasn’t thinking about the pain or her leg, but they weren’t her family for long. And she wasn’t sure he was going to buy it. She’d never seen herself as one for sacrifices. 

But he left the tent and a wave of nausea swept over her. 

*** 

Clarke came back. Without Finn this time. 

Raven waited up all night to see her, pulling her into her arms as soon as she stepped out of the med tent, happy to finally see someone alive and whole, and feel someone’s arms wrap around her without worrying about her leg or how she was feeling. 

They watched together as the gates opened up and Bellamy came through, Octavia just behind him, a girl leaning on his arm. Relief consumed her as she watched the three bodies approach the camp and she wondered how long it would be before she stopped worrying about people not coming back after they left. 

She looked over to Clarke and watched her watch Bellamy. Clarke was hesitant, unsure of how she was supposed to greet him, and Raven thought she saw of flash of something Finn-like in her eyes so she nudged her. 

“Go on,” Raven’s voice was rough, as she glanced back over to Bellamy. “I’ll catch up.”

Someone should give him the greeting he deserved, anyway, she thought as she limped slowly behind Clarke, and watched as Clarke was able to break into a run, both legs pumping hard. Suddenly she felt as though she’d eaten something bad, or sour, and the taste was only just sinking into her tongue.

She caught Bellamy’s eye just before Clarke jumped into him. He was looking at her with wide eyes, as if his mind hadn’t quite caught up to his eyes. His mouth open, like he was going to call something out, probably not to her, probably just to a guard, maybe even just to Octavia a few steps away from him, but then he was overwhelmed by a head of blonde hair, and he wrapped his arms automatically around the body that barreled into him.

Raven glanced down at her leg and stomped her good foot a little harder on the ground.

***

No one would tell her anything. 

Clarke was in and out with the leftover scraps of the council all day, and when Raven caught Bellamy’s arm before he went into meet with them too, he gave her a pained look before he said, 

“I can’t...just not right now, okay?”

And then he pushed himself away from her and into the room where Abby and Clarke stood waiting, and Raven was on the wrong side of the door again. 

She waited, off to the side of the camp, sitting on an old, rusty barrel that somehow survived the fall, waiting for them to be done. She saw Bellamy first, pushing his way out as aggressively as he pushed his way in. She didn’t move at first, waiting a minute or two to see if Clarke would follow, but she didn’t even come out. Raven debated sitting and waiting for her, but she knew Clarke would hop right back onto her savior complex once she had the chance to think about Raven’s leg, and she wouldn’t tell her whatever it was they were planning. Always having to watch out for the little guy, the broken ones. 

So she followed Bellamy into his tent.

It was small and cramped, dinkier than what he’d had that their camp. Barely enough room for more than a cot, but it was better than sleeping out in the open, she guessed. She spent the night in the med tent, so she didn’t know where else there was to go. 

Bellamy was running a hand over his face when she pulled aside the canvas and stepped in. 

“So,” she said, brusquely, expectant. 

“So,” he sighed. 

She eyed his cot, wondering how pathetic it would be if she sat down, took the pressure off her leg. Probably not more pathetic than what happened the last time she was in his tent, she figured, so she walked herself over and plopped down. 

“You look like shit,” she said, adjusting her leg, so she could rest her crutches against it. 

He let his eyes flicker over her leg and land on her rusty brace. 

“You’re one to talk.”

But he wouldn’t meet her eye, and he wouldn’t move his gaze away from her leg. She couldn’t read him. He looked angry, but not at her. She couldn’t figure it out and she felt suddenly very self conscious, wishing he would look somewhere, anywhere, else. 

“So that’s what happened then,” he swallowed. “When Murphy shot through the floor.”

It all clicked and Raven couldn’t control the laugh that slipped out of her. He thought it was his fault. That Murphy going ballistic and ransoming Jasper just to get to Bellamy and then shooting at any noise he heard around the dropship just to make sure he got his chance to kill Bellamy, was his fault. That she was stuck, partially paralyzed because of him, and not some nutjob with a gun. 

“Yeah,” she said. “Don’t worry about not stopping him, you were a little preoccupied.”

Bellamy huffed out a laugh and flashed her a smirk but it was strained. He turns back to what he was doing, packing a bag, before she walked in. 

“I, uh, I heard you,” he said after a minute. “When you were--” Screaming. That’s what he meant to say she was sure, but he just trailed off, looking at her, waiting for an answer. 

“Nice of you to drop by,” she said joking, but he frowned. She ignored the lump in her throat, the compulsion to tell him that she’s felt alone since Murphy crawled in next to her in the dropship, that she doesn’t know if she’ll ever get rid of the loneliness. She doesn’t really have a right to bring that all on him, doesn’t have a right to bring it onto anyone, especially since she’s the one who told Finn to leave. She chose to be alone, so she can’t really complain now that everybody’s let her be.  
His hands pause, and he turns back to her. 

“I couldn’t have come,” he spits out. “Even if I wanted to.”

She just raised her eyebrows at him. “Yeah, like you’d have wanted to.”

“I would have,” he said and he heard her snort, but he didn’t let her interrupt him. “You have more than just Finn, you know.” His frown stayed in place. “I was locked up. Arrested, I guess, if Kane can still arrest us down here. For attacking Murphy when we found you two at the dropship. Kane didn’t--he didn’t know everything and I didn’t feel like taking the time to explain it before giving Murphy what he deserved.”

“Oh,” she said. She wasn’t sure if she believed him, that he wanted to go see her in the med bay. Not sure if she would have wanted him to see her like that anyway, but it’s more than she expected him to say. 

She didn’t know what to say to that. She felt like her head was spinning, and a hundred different questions she would never ask him were popping into her head. She had to move away from it all, from all this she didn’t understand. It was new and confusing and warm and she couldn’t deal with it, so she fell back into something familiar. 

“You left with Finn,” she said. It sounded like a question and Bellamy nodded slowly. “He didn’t come back with you.”

Bellamy let out a sad sigh and tore his eyes away from her. 

“I had to come back. That girl--” he gestured to the entrance of his tent, referring, she figured, to the girl he and Octavia had come in with. “Had been without food for days. She couldn’t make it back on her own.” He paused, clenching his jaw. “Finn kept going to find Clarke.”

“Oh.”

Bellamy rolled his eyes. “He’ll be fine.”

“I know that,” Raven snapped. She wasn’t worried. Or sad. She sent him off, and he was doing what he asked her to do. There was nothing more to it than that.  
But Bellamy hadn’t gone back to his packing so she could tell he didn’t believe her. He even looked a little concerned, like he wanted to help her, to make her feel better, but doubtful, like he didn’t think he could. 

“Clarke’s back though,” she decided to twist this little game of their around on him. She didn’t want to think about Clarke, or Finn, or how tangled the web was anymore, but she wanted to watch Bellamy react to her talking to him about Clarke. To see the look in his eye when it was her voice saying Clarke’s name to him. To see if he was handling this jumbled mess any better than she was. 

He locked eyes with her and it all looked so familiar that she had to suck in a breath. 

“Yeah,” said, relief in his voice but sadness in his eyes. “She’s back.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him, waiting. Maybe for one of his rousing speeches about how they were all going to go out and find their friends, or about how now, with Clarke back, everything would be fine, they would figure something out. But he just let his head drop. 

“You wanna...talk about it?” She asked, as he stepped closer to her, shaking his head. 

“No,” he laughed. “No, not even a little bit.” 

He was close, then, close enough that his fingers reached out and trailed over her left knee, watching it intently. His slipped his thumb back and forth across the rough metal of her brace. He caught her eye and knelt down in front of her, his whole hand covering the brace. 

“Yeah,” she said. “Don’t really want to talk about that either.”

He let out a breath of mock relief. “Good.” 

His other hand reached up, playing with the roots of her hair at the base of her neck, pushing in slightly, urging her forward. Not too hard, she could push back if she wanted, but testing the waters.

“Oh,” she joked. “This again.”

She eased into his hand, falling forward into him, letting his lips press against hers. The pads of his fingers were rough against the skin of her neck and she sighed into him, pushing forward, closer. The hand on her leg gripped harder, pulling her to the edge of the cot, pushing his palm into her thigh to shove it away, leaving room for him to lean into her. 

She caught on to what he was trying to do and nudged herself forward, inching her legs apart as she scooched closer to him, her hand pushing themselves across his chest, bunching it in her fists at the collar and giving it a tug. A heavy breath fell out of her as he pulled away from her to yank the shirt over his head. 

As soon as it was gone, she wrapped her hands back around his neck and tugged him down to her again. 

Her fingers knotted in his hair, making his breath catch in his throat as he was pulled ever closer to her. She felt herself melt like putty under the heat of his hands, working their way up under her shirt, rubbing into her stomach, her back, moving over her breasts. His thumbs rubbed over the tender skin, making her moan into his mouth and she made to slide back down onto the cot, to pull him down on top of her fully, but he pulled away. 

“What--” she started but he was moving down to the hem of her shirt. 

Softly he pushed her down by her shoulder with his hand as he nudged her shirt up a few inches with his nose, kissing her bare stomach. She felt the prickle of his chin where some hair had begun growing, a layer of scruff over his dirt covered skin. It felt good as he pushed his way farther and farther up her body, scratching gently as he went, and she couldn’t help but push herself forward into it all for more. 

She moaned when he moved from her ribs to her breasts, hitching her hips up toward him as his mouth worked over her chest. One leg lifted from the cot and latched around his hips, forcing him onto her as she ground into him, begging silently for more. He carried on slowly, moving from one breast to the other, teasing her, and she could feel his smirk burning into her skin as she rocked her hips harder and harder into his. Eventually he broke off with a groan. 

He crawled back over her, his chest hovering over hers, and kissed her again, hard, as he dipped his hips down to rub against hers. Then he slipped a careful hand down, tickling her bare stomach as he went, until he popped the button on her pants, pushing the waistband down. He squeezed playfully at the top of her thighs and she found herself forcing her hips down, rather than letting them hitch upwards involuntarily to meet his wrist. At her groan, he deepened the kiss and let his hand fall over her, fingers dipping into her folds as his thumb worked agonizingly slow circles around her clit. 

“Bellamy,” she grit out, panting against his mouth. “Come on.”

That was all it took for him. He gave one last long, nearly languid kiss, and then his mouth was working it’s way down her body again, tickling her as it scraped across her skin. Until finally, he pulled his hand out of the waistband of her pants and used both to shove them down, his tongue replacing his thumb. 

It wasn’t at all like the first time. The first time was hot, and hard, and quick. They’d done just enough to get themselves ready and then he was slipping in and it was over. She’d never felt him kiss like that, or tease like that, or really truly take his time. Never felt him enjoy it the way she felt it now. With his smile creeping in, pressing against her thigh, or his hands gripping tight rubbing up and down, slowly, in circles, as he took his time, bringing her closer and closer then backing down only to do it again.  
It hadn’t felt nearly as intimate the first time, and she wasn’t sure if it was something in her or something in him that had flipped the switch. But now, on the brink of it all, she couldn’t bring herself to care about anything more than what his mouth and his skin felt like against hers. 

She felt boneless and giddy when it was all done, and instead of standing and leaving like last time she let herself lay there a while. He flopped down next to her, his fingers still trailing over the soft skin of her stomach. 

With a breath she gathered enough energy to pull herself up and swing herself over him with her good leg. She let her hands rest on his chest, and she leaned down to kiss him. His hands felt tight on her hips and she could feel him through his pants, hard, after getting her off. She trailed her mouth down to the crook of his neck, sucking at the skin there and she smiled at the way his chest rose as the feeling.

Rocking her hips back and forth, teasing him the way he’d teased her, she moved to work her way down his body, but suddenly, he sat up. 

“It’s...fine,” he breathed out. “You don’t have to.”

She stopped for a moment, confused, and before she could answer he was kissing her again. Just like him, she thought. To take care of someone, even after he’d already taken care of them. To put himself last again and again to the point where he didn’t even make the ranking at all. 

He grasped her hands and brought them back up to his neck, and she tangled them in his hair. His hands went back to her hips, pulling her into him in the rhythm of her movements, but after a few moments, he let his head drop onto her shoulder. 

“I can’t--” he shook his head. Raven felt a weight drop in her stomach, like suddenly it was more than it was supposed to be and Bellamy was calling it off. “I shouldn’t have even…” he trailed off, kissing his way across her collarbone. 

“You’re not doing a very good job of convincing me you don’t want this.”

He rolled his head back up and met her eyes, looking for the first time in a long time like the Bellamy exasperated by her constant snark at the camp. She couldn’t help it, a smile slipped onto her face at the thought. 

The corner of his mouth twitched. 

“Not a matter of want,” he said rolling his eyes. “I just, I have to go.”

“There’s nowhere to go,” she teased, but she pushed herself away from him and tugged the waistband of her pants back up, buttoning them. “This planet’s a wasteland.”  
He nodded at that, moving aside so they weren’t tangled together anymore. 

“A wasteland that our friends are still lost on though,” he said. He swung his legs over the edge of the cot, grabbing at his discarded shirt and tugging it back on. “We’re going to get them.”

She opened her mouth to ask what the plan was when he continued. 

“Clarke and I.” He cleared his throat, looking away from her. “We’re going to find Finn and bring him back to you.”

She felt something hot prickle at her chest but she pushed it aside. “Great.” She swallowed. “What’s the plan.”

He stood up, avoiding her eye. “I’ll let you know when I know.” She hadn’t stood up though and he was looking awkwardly around the tiny tent for something to do instead of watch her sit there on his cot. He picked up her crutch from where it had fallen from the cot, and rested it next to her leg again. “I, uh, told Clarke I’d meet her though, so…”

“Right.” She picked up her crutch and hoisted herself up. “Of course. Duty calls.”

 

**two**

“Thought you hated that plan,” Bellamy’s words rang out in the cold silence. “That I would get myself killed.”

Raven watched his eyes, looking for any sign of what she was sure he was thinking. She could tell by the small nod of his head and the clench of his jaw what he was waiting for Clarke to say to him. What he was desperately hoping to hear. And she could tell by the harsh glare in her eyes that Clarke wasn’t going to say it. 

“I was being weak It’s worth the risk.”

There was a part, a small part of her that wasn’t as appalled at that as she should have been. A part that was relieved even, because now, maybe now, she could repay him. For being the one, the only one, to comfort her about Finn. About the man she loved being killed by the woman she followed. A man who loved her in halves, dying at the hand of the one he forgot her for. The one that she didn’t want to love anymore, but her desires, and her stupid childlike wishes didn’t take away any of the pain or despair of her having to watch her only family be torn away from her. 

And Bellamy was the only one. He’d reached out as it happened, pulling her into him, his hand steady and warm against her head. 

But she hated herself for the relief she felt. And she hated Clarke, again, more now, for ripping it all apart like this. For choosing to ignore the hurt she’s caused and barrel on to the next person, blank and open for bruising. 

She couldn’t hear anything after that, a red hot ringing in her ears as she watched him nod and agree to his own death like it was nothing. Like it wasn’t the stupidest plan he’s had since breaking off the wristbands of all the delinquents. 

It couldn’t be love, she thought. Not anymore. Love didn’t make you sign your life away to someone who couldn’t care if you did. Maybe he didn’t love her anymore and that’s why. Why he was fine with walking into his own funeral because he didn’t really know how to not love her and he was just trying to figure out what that meant. Or maybe he only still loved her because he didn’t know what else to do. 

Maybe it was a way to find any sort of reason on this fucked up planet. 

It didn’t matter anyway. Not to her. She just had a job to do. 

“Hey,” she said. She rested her hand on his shoulder, waiting until he looked over to her. “I’ve got the plans set up in my tent. Come take a look.” She gave his shoulder a pat, and waited until he nodded before she walked away. It didn’t take him long to follow, the flap of the tent had barely fallen behind her when he walked in beside her. 

“Alright, what plans do you have for me Reyes?” His voice was tight. 

“Just, relax for a second. Take a breath. You can’t leave until morning anyway.” She moved aside and cleared off one of the smaller tables where the plans and walkie talkies lay, nodding at it. He raised his eyebrows and shuffled his feet, and refused to move and she snapped. “Just take a fucking minute to sit and think about what you’ve agreed to do alright? Once you leave in the morning, you won’t be coming back. You won’t have time to think about anything other than not dying. Take a second. Take a breath.”

Startled at her words, he sat down. He said nothing, his hands folded in his lap, his head dipped down away from her, but she saw a shaky breath leave him, and she nods to herself before kneeling in front of him. 

She didn’t know how to say it. Or if she should. But when Clarke told him to go, to be ready to leave by morning, to take Lincoln with him and march to his death, she felt a burning in her chest she couldn’t explain. And it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair because things were supposed to be simple, she was supposed to love Finn and grieve for him and have that consume her until she was ready to move on, but for days, for weeks she’d been feeling a prickling at the back of her ribs growing bigger and bigger until, tonight, she couldn’t pretend it was just a coincidence. 

“This plan is dumb” she said instead. “And you’re an idiot for going along with it.”

“Don’t start,” he says shaking his head. “It has to be done, it’s the only way to get our friends out of that mountain.”

Raven scoffed, turning away from him. She was so sick of it all. Sick of people coming up with one shitty plan and then deciding that it was the only thing to do. 

“Finn thought that the only way to save our friends was to shoot those villagers. Look how that turned out.”

Bellamy stood up, the table scraping across the dirt behind her. She expected him to say something, to fight back with her or tell her that it wasn’t the same thing, or that it wasn’t a risk at all. That there was a great long list of things that made him an idiot, walking into that dropship to save Jasper and asking her to get him out for one, but this plan didn’t make the list. It was silent though, the rustling of papers in her hands the only noise in the tent. She waited a moment longer, until she felt his warmth creep up behind her. 

“What,” he growled, closer to her than she’d realized, “exactly do you think a better plan is?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she snapped back, turning around. “Anything but handing yourself over to the bloodthirsty, homicidal mountain men? Anything but walk yourself right into what we know for sure, is nothing but a trap? Have you thought this through at all?”

“You think I want to go in there?” He was yelling. And he was so, so close to her, the breath of his words bouncing off of her nose. “You think I’m happy about it?”

“Clarke’s gone off the deep end, she can’t handle leading us anymore, you’re being selfish going in there and you know it! Who gives a fuck if you’re happy about it.”

She hadn’t meant to say it. 

She didn’t want to bring it up, the reason he was running away, the reason he was so easily able to nod and say yes to anything, to everything, Clarke asked him. The ghost behind Clarke’s eyes was pushing him away while her need for him was asking him to help her. Raven didn’t want that in here, in her tent, when she was trying to give him space and time to breath, a place where it was okay to be afraid of what he was about to do, because god knows Bellamy’s never been allowed to be afraid of anything. 

But it was out there now, and she couldn’t take it back. 

He was just staring at her wide eyed, hurt splattered all over his face. 

“Clarke’s gone over Finn’s death and you’re running away because you can’t compete with that.”

His shock turned to a scowl. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

There wasn’t room for it, whatever it was that she was feeling. And whatever it was that he was feeling for her. There wasn’t room for it with Finn dead or alive, or with Clarke giving him orders. There wasn’t room for anything but solid facts. Finn was dead. Bellamy was leaving.

Raven was terrified. 

He rubbed a hand over his face, his thumb and his forefinger rubbing into his eyes, leaving them red and watery when he pulled them away. 

“Just show me the plans, Raven. Please.”

So she did. 

He sat back down when she was done, letting the reality wash over him. Not long, just a few minutes, and then he was standing back up, heading for his own tent. 

For a moment she saw herself reaching her arms out and folding him in close like he did to her just the night before. But the thought of the feeling of his heart racing in fear, pressing up against her chest when he was trying so hard to hide it pulled her back. 

She grabbed his wrist quickly instead. 

“Just try not to fuck it all up,” she said. 

He gave a quick nod, eyes stuck to her hand, and then he was gone. 

 

**three**

Her head felt like it was spinning--a slow, languid sort of spinning that made her feel warm and nauseated at the same time-- and she was sipping slowly at the water Monty brought to her, her back resting against the cool wall of the Ark, her feet propped up in front of her on her cot. 

She glanced over to her left to see Monty give her a small smile. 

“We don’t have to talk about it,” he said. “Ever, if you don’t want to. But, if you need someone who...gets it, I don’t mind.”

She looked at how sunken in his cheeks looked, how pale his skin was, and she finally, finally noticed the scars and the bruises scattered across his skin.

“Monty,” she started but he smiled and shook his head. 

“I’m fine.” He leaned back in his chair to look more relaxed, pulling his hands behind his head and crossing his feet at his ankles. She laughed and saw a knot of tension ease its way out of his shoulders at that. 

“They really did a number on us didn’t they,” she murmured. 

His returning nod was soft and sad. She wondered when they were going to be able to stop saying things like that about their life on the ground.  
Footsteps stomp in their direction and she looks up to see Bellamy walking toward them. His Mt. Weather Guard vest is off, but the rest of the clothes remain, making him look slightly out of place amongst the rubble of the Ark. 

“Nice threads,” she teased, but he didn’t smile. 

Looking to her left, he rested his hand on Monty’s shoulder, turning his back to her. A moment later, Monty was standing up, out of the chair. 

“Like I said,” Monty said to her, his hand squeezing her forearm. He didn’t finish the thought, but gave her one last squeeze before walking out of the med bay, leaving her with Bellamy. 

He looked tired, sunken in on himself, like Monty, but ashen. It looked like a permanent shift within him. Like even if he slept for a week straight he wouldn’t get back to how he was before. He dropped, wordlessly into Monty’s chair, resting his gaze on her, without really looking at her. 

“Where’s Clarke?” she asked after a minute of silence, but he just shook his head. She thought she saw a tear drop from the corner of his eye, but it was shaken away too fast for her to do anything. She knew what it meant. That Clarke didn’t come in. 

It’s a mess, she couldn’t help but think, that Finn was dead and Clarke was gone, the two of them left there together. 

“I know what happened. What you did.” Her voice croaked slowly out of her, like she wasn’t quite used to using it again, still sore and rough inside her. He wouldn’t meet her gaze. 

“Hey,” she said. She reached a feeble arm out, stretching her fingers out toward him. “I’d be dead. Drilled out on that table if you didn’t do what you did.” The tips of her fingers rested on his arm, waiting for him to look back up at her. “Thank you.”

He stood up and she pulled her arm back quickly, looking away from him so she wouldn’t have to watch him walk away and feel the blanket of loneliness drape back over her, but she didn’t hear his footsteps leave. 

“Raven.” He was standing over her. She turned back to him just in time for him to lean down, his hand looping around the back of her head, bringing her lips up to his. It was different, again. She wondered if it would be different every time with him, getting closer and closer together with each try. His lips were chapped and sore beneath hers, but she moved against them, ignoring the flash of pain she felt as she pressed her body up, moving closer to him. His hands were soft against her cheeks, and he pulled away, his lips red and rough looking, and he rested his forehead against hers, letting a slow breath out, and she caught the ghost of a smile play at his lips.

***

It was later, when she was let out of the med bay that she went to find him. 

It didn’t take much. She stepped out of the Ark, and barely had to scan the ground before she saw him, standing at the gate instructing Harper and Miller where to go, a gun slung to his back as he took his own position. 

It took a minute but she got there, slowly, not worried about how long it would take her or what he would say when she got there. 

She tapped him on the shoulder.

“So,” she smiled, bumping against him. “Back in charge, huh?”

**Author's Note:**

> first time writing raven x bellamy so i'm not sure how well i got them, but please, let me know what you think! or come find me on [tumblr!](%E2%80%9Dofhobbitsandwomen.tumblr.com%E2%80%9D)


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